hi, your serhalphim AU is very interesting! could you tell us more about it, like why Avatar Hal is hunting down Qilin Hal? or anything else, i just think it's rly cool
I'm really glad you like what we've done with @winterumi !
I realise I haven't given that much context indeed !
So maybe either of us will write something more elaborated and put together once we're able to work on it again but-
The world building is still a WIP but I can talk about why Avatar!Hal is after Qilin!Hal !
Btw Avatar!Hal uses it/its early on then it/he
(I think Qilin uses he/him or he/they ?)
Qilin!Hal ruled over humankind, watching over their every move, mostly to satisfy his own curiosity. He did not have ill intents per say, only trying to make humankind progress faster by implementing an "efficient way to live". However humans did not like it, taking it as an dictatorship. Soon enough, people gathered to find a way to take him down. A rebellion formed in order to build a weapon that could eliminate the Qilin God.
Then came the idea to create a replica of the Qilin, programming in the very same personnality and mannerism to try to predict Qilin!Hal and find his weakness. As they wanted to make sure their man-made mechanical god never came alive, they bound Avatar!Hal to the laws of robotic. Additionnally they allowed it to have only very little magic. With the kind of weapon they made, they couldn't take any risk.
However the project was never finished and Avatar!Hal remained a prototype. The rebels died during a test trial and got "terminated" by their own creation.
Avatar!Hal carried on the last task it was given instead of deactivation : Kill God. Hence his hunt of Qilin!Hal. (Also explaining Avatar!Hal ending its makers as they're listed as somekind of "god of its" as they're its creator)
They end up meeting, Qilin defeating Avatar and claiming him as somekind of trophy to lord over mankind to prove their failure to take him down. Qilin!Hal originaly took Avatar!Hal to make it one his vessels but upon connecting for the first time he realised what he stumbled upon.
Qilin broke most of Avatar's binds (allowing him to come alive and develop his own self) and they end up finding how compatible their systems are, allowing them to fuse in somekind of hivemind.
We have written so much stuff on them that I can't tell everything in one sitting but I do have some fun facts or details about how they work, either their dynamic or "how they are built" ig.
I have stuff mostly on Avatar!Hal, you'd have to ask Rumi for Qilin!Hal
-> Avatar acts as somekind of second in command for Qilin, which means it listen to him.
-> Avatar does not look that close to Qilin physically because he was build after one of its creators in terms of appearance. (Which would be an ancestor of the Striders)
-> Avatar works mostly on code, which he rewrites himself little by little to give himself more freedom. It takes a while and he had a permanent blank face on for a long time before slowly learning emotions from Qilin. He remains very logical and that one think both of them agree on, they like logic.
-> Merging consciousness allow them to extent their influence and power. It works like this : if Qilin is the WiFi, Avatar is the router. Avatar does not have lots of power or range on his own but he excels at boosting Qilin's abilities.
-> Also about merging, Avatar needs magic early own to function. Connecting allows him to take a bit of magic from Qilin as he's unable to produce his own very well, he can but is very limited in that matter.
Well, I hope it answered some of your questions ! Sorry for any typo, it is very late and I didn't reread most of it-
